


Lost

by misericordia986



Category: Shameless (US)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Angst, Canon-Typical Violence, Flashbacks, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Mexico, Mickey's losing his shit, Panic Attacks, Pining i guess?, Prison, Swearing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-17
Updated: 2018-03-17
Packaged: 2019-04-01 07:35:44
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,312
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13993563
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misericordia986/pseuds/misericordia986
Summary: He didn't look back. After he crossed the border, he kept driving long after the sun went down and the stars were high in the sky. A kind of numbness had overtaken his body. He didn't feel tired or scared or sad or anything else he thought maybe someone else in his situation might feel.





	Lost

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys, this is the first fanfiction that I'm actually posting online and it's been bouncing around in my head for a while, so I'm excited to finally start posting it. It is un-betaed, so if you see any errors or have other constructive criticism, it is more than welcome! 
> 
> This is not so much of a Ian and Mickey getting back together story as it is exploring what happens to Mickey while he is in prison and after he crosses over into Mexico. Ian does eventually make an appearance, but it's a long while off. It is canon compliant through Season 8.

He didn't look back. After he crossed the border, he kept driving long after the sun went down and the stars were high in the sky. A kind of numbness had overtaken his body. He didn't feel tired or scared or sad or anything else he thought maybe someone else in his situation might feel. 

The only thing that eventually stopped his long drive was the gas indicator on the dash and a pressing urge to take a piss.

He pulled into the next gas station. He was suddenly painfully aware that he was still fully dressed as a woman. 

_Fuck it._ He thought as he grabbed a couple of bills out of the envelope that Ian had given him. He tried very hard not to linger too much on that thought as he got out of the car and headed into the tiny store.

He walked up to the cashier, a guy a little younger than him. The cashier looked him up and down when he approached.

“Necesito gasolina por favor,” Mickey said, utilizing some of his meager Spanish speaking ability, “Solo tengo dinero americano.” The cashier blinked at him, clearly startled by his deep voice. 

“Issokay” He took the money that Mickey offered him.

“Y donde esta el baño?”

The cashier looked him up and down again, his eyes probing as he pointed him outside toward the bathrooms.

The bathroom was a small stall out behind the main store. Mickey stepped into the tiny dank room, dimly lit by one flickering light. 

He relieved himself quickly and turned to go, catching a glimpse of himself in the mirror. He almost didn't recognize himself, the lighting and his disguise making him look like a whole different person. Like he, Mickey, wasn’t really here in this situation. Like he didn't even really exist.

\---

It wasn't until Mickey had gotten back into the car and was pulling out into the road that reality snapped back around him like an overstretched rubber band. 

He and Ian were over. 100%. He was never going to see him again. Or anyone else he knew. Not Mandy. Not Iggy. Not even fucking Damon. No one.

He was crushed by a horrible wave of regret and sheer terror. It hit him so suddenly that he had to pull onto the side of the road. It squeezed his lungs and his heart making it hard to breathe and before he knew it he was panting horrible gasping sobs that he couldn't stop. Tears were pouring down his face and fucking snot was everywhere and _he couldn't breathe he was fucking dying._

He ripped the wig off of his head and tore the stupid restrictive dress he had on as he struggled to fucking breathe. He couldn't stop crying (like a fucking _faggot_ , something deep inside him hissed) and he finally got the stupid dress off and he screamed in frustration because he still couldn't breathe and he was gasping and gasping and he just stayed like that, hunched over in the driver's seat of his car half naked until finally something in his chest loosened a little and he could almost breathe again. 

He didn’t know how long he sat there for, breathing slowly and unsteadily coming back to normal. He could still feel a hint of panic lurking in the corner of his mind but it was overpowered by the bone crushing exhaustion that was settling over his whole body. 

 

The next thing he knew, he was opening his eyes to the harsh sunlight streaming in the windows of the station wagon. It was boiling hot inside the car and he was sweaty as fuck. The dress was still tangled next to him on the seat and the wig was lying haphazardly on the dash. He was parked right next to the road, with no cover at all. 

_Nice Milkovich. Don’t try too hard not to get caught._ He thought to himself as he rolled down the windows in attempt to get some air circulating while he started the car up. He pulled a little further off the road behind some brush to give himself some privacy. He changed clothes quickly, using the dress to dry himself off a little and wipe some of the remaining makeup off of his face. His border disguise got dumped in a bush and the envelope full of cash got tucked in the inside pocket of his bag. He still felt off kilter from the ridiculous meltdown he’d had the night before and thinking about what he was going to do now that he was in Mexico, alone, with no contacts or support made the knot of anxiety broiling deep in his gut threaten to flare up and consume him. 

He needed a fucking drink. 

And then he needed to get to the beach.

\---

_It had been weeks of nothing after the calls and visits had started slowly waning away. And now divorce papers stared up at him declaring in bold black print that Svetlana Petrova Milkovich was petitioning for total dissolution of marriage. The paper crumpled in his hands as they reflexively curled into fists._

_“Fucking bitch,” he muttered to himself as he flipped through the papers. Absolute divorce, full custody (obviously), the whole nine. Not that he cared, but he would have appreciated a fucking warning or something. Although, he supposed, the lack of visits should have been warning enough on their own._

_He tossed the papers to the side and flopped onto his back on the hard cot that was his bed. He hadn’t really had many visitors any other time he had been locked up. His family spent most of their collective time in and out of the correctional system, so none of them were interested in spending any more time in a prison setting than was strictly necessary. Iggy had come to see him when he had first been imprisoned, but he hadn't seen any of his other siblings. He didn’t even know if Mandy was alive or not or where she was. And of course Ian had come twice, unwillingly. Svetlana and Yevgeny had been his only regular visitors, but that apparently was over._

_It had never bothered him before but, he realized, this wasn’t some bullshit year long stint in juvie. He was going to be here for a long time, a significant portion of his twenties and maybe his thirties if he was unlucky. And if he was honest with himself, the prospect of eight to fifteen years without a single familiar face aside from the assholes he was locked up with was bleak._

_He absentmindedly rubbed his chest, feeling the ridges of scar tissue through the layers of his jumpsuit and wife beater. He knew that Ian didn't want to see him, but it didn't stop him from missing him horribly. The last time he’d seen him, Ian had looked pretty rough and Mickey wondered if he was doing better now, if he was taking his meds. Or if he was worse…_

_Mickey thought maybe that not knowing was a worse punishment than anything the Illinois Correctional System could throw at him._

\---

Mickey ditched the car at the edge of a tiny town on the central part of Mexico’s coast and continued on foot through the tree lined streets. Nothing here looked like anything he’d ever seen before. There was color everywhere, lush green tropical trees and plants, brightly painted buildings, the wide blue sky stretching as far as he could see in every direction. It was overwhelming, being here less than a week after escaping prison, after two years spent trapped in a cramped artificially lit jail cell. He walked aimlessly, not knowing exactly where he was heading. As he walked further down the street though, he started to catch a glimpse of something at the end, getting clearer as he got closer.

The beach.

The road dead ended and opened up right onto the white sand. The water stretched wide in either direction, clear and calm and blue. For a moment he forgot to breathe. It was by far the most beautiful place he had ever seen. 

It was everything he’d been waiting for, everything he had planned for, for months. And he was here now and it felt nothing like he thought it would.

He felt empty.

\---

He was burning, on fire. It surrounded him and suffocated him, leaving his mouth and throat dry and constricted. There were no flames, only darkness, but he could feel the oppressive heat coming at him from every direction. There was no escaping. 

Suddenly, a figure appeared through the darkness, walking towards him as though the inferno were nothing more than a gentle breeze. It was Ian. His bright hair shone like a beacon and Mickey could see the reflection of flames in his eyes, giving him an almost inhuman look, but nonetheless his presence soothed the burning just a little. Ian would help him, he knew it. He approached and stood in front of Mickey, just looking at him for a moment and then another moment. Mickey could feel the burning intensify and ash was choking him. 

“Ian…” he tried to say, but there was no air in his lungs so it came out as an impotent wheeze. The fire was burning hotter and hotter and Mickey could feel his lungs tightening and still Ian just stood there, looking at him.

Finally he spoke, shaking his head slightly. “I can’t deal with this, it just isn’t me anymore. I have a life. I have a boyfriend!” 

It was like Mickey had been emotionally fucking throat punched. He tried to protest, tried to say something, any fucking thing to get Ian to help him. To keep him from walking away.

“No, don’t do this, not now,” his chapped lips formed the words but there was no sound. His lungs were collapsing and black spots danced around the edges of his vision. He was dying and Ian just kept looking, expressionless, as the heat and the fire consumed him whole.

 

It turned out not to be fire suffocating him, but the towel over his face. He came to finally, trembling as he clawed the towel away from his face and air rushed into his lungs. His throat burned and the sand under him was rough and hot on his skin. There was a bottle of something (tequila, a quick glance told him) lying next to him and he quickly chugged a little down just to get some kind of moisture back into his throat. It burned like fuck going down and his stomach lurched a little unpleasantly.

“What the actual fuck?” he muttered to himself as he looked around.

He must have passed out on the beach. The blazing sun was high in the sky and his head pounded from the light and the heat. There were people further down the beach, but he was in a relatively secluded spot away from the water. He figured he was lucky that the towel had been over him or else he’d probably be sunburned on top of the killer hangover he was nursing. 

He staggered to his feet, wobbling a little as his stomach lurched again and collected his backpack, towel and the tequila bottle. He wasn’t sure how he had acquired that, but he felt lucky for it, as a little hair of the dog was probably just what he needed. He took another swig.

It was mid-swig that he remembered the dream. His whole stomach dropped, like he had just swallowed a giant weight. 

Ian.

Ian looking at him as he fucking suffocated, that blank look on his face, the same one he’d had when they’d broken up and when he’d come to visit Mickey in prison. The same one he’d had at the border, when he’d told Mickey that this (whatever _this_ was) wasn’t him anymore. Like Mickey didn’t mean shit to him.

Before he could stop it, he could feel his face getting hot and his stupid chin was quivering in that really annoying way that it did right before he cried. He blinked against the tears gathering at the corners of his eyes, willing himself not to be a pussy, but they were falling down his face now uncontrolled. His insides were churning and his head was throbbing as he crumpled back down onto the sand. He felt fucking wretched inside, just gutted. 

Was he really that awful of a person? So awful that the only person that he would have given up anything for (his family, his freedom, fucking _anything_ ) couldn’t or wouldn’t do the same for him?

He knew he wasn’t being totally fair to Ian, or to himself. He knew that things were going well for Ian back in Chicago and that running away to a whole other country was asking a lot. But he had been ready for him to say no when he had asked him initially. He had even expected it. Then Ian had said yes and Mickey had been so, so hopeful that things would go his way this time until that moment right at the end. Right when it mattered.

 _This just isn’t me anymore._ Mickey shook his head derisively at the memory. The tears were stopping and the despair churning in the pit of his gut was mutating into something more familiar. 

Anger felt better. He was done being a fucking teary eyed little bitch who fell apart over some guy rejecting him. He rallied himself and got to his feet again, gathering his shit and taking another giant drink out of the tequila bottle. Swinging the backpack over his shoulder and the towel around his neck, he started off down the beach back to the street into town. 

He was Mickey fucking Milkovich, and he didn’t need anybody.

Especially not Ian Gallagher.


End file.
